The Spaniard hung his head as he made this confession, while Laudonniere with severe aspect rated him for his lecheries. When the captain had ceased his rebuke, Le Barbu continued his story thus: "We gained many battles in this war with the mountain Indians, who are neither so fierce, nor so subtle as those who dwell along the regions of the sea. Verily, the people of the lord of Calos are great dissemblers, treacherous beyond the serpent, valiant of their persons, and fight with excellent address. Great was the favor which I found with them because of my conduct in the war; and, in each succeeding war, for a space of six years, I became, in like manner, distinguished, until I became a most favorite chief with the lord of Calos, and a bosom friend and companion of his son--he whom I had rescued from the stag, and who had now grown up to manhood. Greatly did this lad favor his father. He was of a light olive complexion, scarcely more dark than the people of Spanish race, but superior in stature, well-limbed, and of admirable dexterity. With him I hunted from the fall of the leaf in autumn, to the budding of the leaf again in spring; and, when the summer time came, we sped away in our canoes, up the vast rivers of the country, through great lakes, many of which lie embadey in forests of mangrove and palm, where the forest swims upon the water. If it were possible for a Christian man--for one who has heard the sound of a great bell in the cities of the old world, and who has communed with the various good and wondrous things of civilization--to be content with a loss of these, and their utter exclusion from sight for ever, then might I have passed pleasantly the years of my captivity among the people of Calos. I had become a chief and was greatly honored. I had power and I was much feared. I had wealth--such wealth as the savage estimates--and I was loved; and the lord of Calos and his noble son, put in me a faith which never betrayed a doubt or a denial. But I had not power to shield my brother Christians, save in one case. Each year witnessed the sacrifice of a comrade. They were the victims to the Iawas. The priesthood was a power under which the kings themselves were made to tremble. With them was it to determine upon peace or war, life or death, bonds or freedom; and the strength of the king lay greatly in his alliance with the priesthood. But for this, the rule among the savage nations would be wholly with the people. Season after season, when came the harvest, one of our luckless Spaniards was taken away from the rest and doomed to the sacrifice. In this way the savages propitiate the unknown God, to whom they looked for victory over their enemies. Do not suppose that I beheld this cruelty without toiling against it. But I spoke in vain. I made angry the Iawas, until the lord of Calos himself addressed me, after this fashion--'Son of the stranger, art thou not well thyself? Why